Michel Hazanavicius To Lead Sarajevo Festival Jury

Academy Award-winning French director Michel Hazanavicius will lead the jury of the 26th Sarajevo Film Festival. The festival will run from Aug. 14 to 21, 2020.

After breaking out in France with the Jean Dujardin-led spy farces “OSS: 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies,” and “OSS: 117: Lost in Rio,” the French director broke onto the international stage with 2011’s “The Artist,” which took home four Academy Awards, including prizes for best picture and best director. Hazanavicius brought his 2014 follow-up, “The Search,” to the Sarajevo Festival.

“Hazanavicius is an author known for his strong stylistic expression who always reexamines relationship with film, its language and history,” said Mirsad Purivatra, the Sarajevo Film Festival director. “Let’s remember that in a new millennium his film ‘The Artist’ has made the whole world enjoy once again a supposedly outdated film format – silent film.”

Hazanavicius’ most recent outing, the Omar Sy-led family comedy “The Lost Prince,” was released in France last week and will open in other European territories in the weeks to come. The filmmaker is currently working on an animated feature based on the writings of Jean-Claude Grumberg.

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Previous Sarajevo jury presidents have included Cristi Puiu (2010), Ari Folman (2011), Kornel Mundruczo (2012), Danis Tanovic (2013), Bela Tarr (2014), Calin Peter Netzer (2015), Elia Suleiman (2016), Michel Franco (2017), Asghar Farhadi (2018), Ruben Ostlund (2019).

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